The online lubes retailer shows domestics still favoured over international brands
Sinolub, an online lubricants retailer that utilises Alibaba's Tmall e-commerce platform, has analysed over 120m units of data to gain insight into consumers' purchasing behaviour online. Among the many trends observed is a contuing prevalence of slightly lower price domestic brands over pricier foreign ones.
The highest sold lubricant in Q1 2014 was Great Wall's SJ 10W-40 Jiebao Wang 1L motorcycle lube, selling just over 2,500 units. Fuchs' Titan SuperSyn 5W-40 4L motor oil took the second spot with just under 1,000 units sold. The third, fourth and fifth best-selling brands did not reach the 500 units sold mark.
Calculating by most-sold lubricant standard, API SN 5W-40 grade oils represented 51% of lubes sold, SM 10W-40 made up 15% with SL 0W-40 comprising 13%.
The 200-300 yuan ($32-48) price point was still the most appealing category by some distance, with more than 60,000 units sold, although consumer surveys suggested shoppers "did not want to buy expensive, but wanted good value for money." Shoppers would, apparently, be happy to buy a more expensive oil if it was better suited to their vehicle's needs.
With 13 lubes producers signing up for flagship stores on Tmall, including Total, Longan and Highrun Oils, it is clear that having an online presence is vital. Sinolub claim the biggest challenges in online lubes marketing will be making sure the product is seen as trustworthy, good value for money and is delivered rapidly. These are all areas which established foreign brands could capitalise on. Strengthening O2O (online-to-offline) ties will also be critical, according to Sinolub.